Sand fills the streets along the central Jersey shore in the wake of superstorm Sandy. / MIKE GROLL/Associated Press

By Wayne Parry

Associated Press

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Waves wash over a roller coaster from a Seaside Heights, N.J., amusement park. The coaster fell into the Atlantic Ocean during the storm. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has pledged to rebuild the shore. / MIKE GROLL/Associated Press

Dune fencing and sand cover the boardwalk Thursday in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J. Several boardwalks on the shore were damaged. / WAYNE PARRY/Associated Press

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SEASIDE HEIGHTS, N.J. -- It is one of the icons of America, the backdrop to a thousand stories -- the place where Tony Soprano's nightmares unfolded, where Nucky Thompson built his "Boardwalk Empire," where Snooki and the Situation brought reality TV to the ocean's edge and where Bruce Springsteen conjured a world of love and loss and cars and carnival lights and a girl named, incongruously, Sandy.

But after the storm of the same name passed through last week, the seaside towns of the Jersey shore, a place that popular culture has picked to exude Americana, have been upended, and some of the boardwalks have been pushed into the sea.

And those who live there, spent their childhood weekends there and who experience its stories from afar are asking: What happens now?

"This is just a heartbreaking experience seeing all these places we love that are just decimated," said Jen Miller, a blogger about the Jersey shore who lives in the Philadelphia area. "It's just what you do every summer: you go 'down the shore.'

"The pictures are awful; my heart breaks looking at them," she said. "I run on all these boardwalks. I go over that bridge between Belmar and Avon. It's one of those things you think will always be there. And now it's not."

All along the state's 127-mile coastline, the storm-wrecked communities rich and poor, from multimillion-dollar homes in Bay Head and Mantoloking to blue-collar bayfront bungalows.

Boardwalks were trashed, a roller coaster dumped into the ocean. The worst damage was nearest the ocean, but winds and water wrecked homes several miles inland as well.

Damage assessments were still being made, but thousands of homes were affected.

"Who ever thought they'd see a roller coaster in Seaside Heights in the ocean?" New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie asked. He pledged to help rebuild the shore, while cautioning it might not look exactly the same.

For many people, the Jersey shore is much more than a place; it's an identity, a brand. It's where Christie got into it with a heckler last summer while eating an ice cream cone as he was strolling with his family.

It's also the economic engine that powers New Jersey's $35.5-billion tourism industry.

The real Jersey shore is the setting for MTV's "Jersey Shore" reality show about a group of foul-mouthed, hard-partying twentysomethings, which has enshrined big hair, fist-pumping and phrases like, "Come at me, bro" as part of Jersey pop culture.

Jon Bon Jovi shot one of his first music videos atop a rest room pavilion on the Seaside Heights boardwalk in 1985, across from the Sand Tropez clothing stand and Lucky Leo's arcade.

Richie Sambora played the guitar solo to "In And Out Of Love" in a Seaside Heights lifeboat.

It's where the click of spinning prize wheels, carnival barkers' shouts and the "pop" of breaking water balloon games compete for attention with boom-box rap, pop and heavy metal from strolling or skateboarding teens.

"When you're a teenager and you get your driver's license, the first thing you do is get in the car and drive down to Seaside Heights," said Marilou Halvorsen, a lifelong shore resident who until recently worked for the company that owned the now-wrecked Casino Pier in Seaside, where the remains of the roller coaster sit half-submerged in the ocean.

"You walk on the boardwalk, you get an ice cream cone, you take your kids on their first carousel ride: Whether you're young or old, these are memories that are part of your life in every stage of your life," she said. "This is the skyline of the Jersey shore. It's a special place, a historic place."

Historic, indeed. Atlantic City built the world's first boardwalk as a way to keep guests from tracking sand into beachfront hotels. A small portion of that Boardwalk -- now uppercased as a formal street name -- was destroyed in the storm, although the Boardwalk in front of the nine oceanfront casinos remained intact.

The pounding surf wrecked part or all of boardwalks in Belmar, Sea Girt and Point Pleasant Beach. Walkways in Asbury Park, about which Springsteen often wrote, and Ocean City sustained lesser damage.

Kimberly Blackburn grew up at the Jersey shore but has been living near her husband's family in Joliet, Ill., for the last four years. She described feeling "helpless" over the last week from 750 miles away as she viewed devastating images of the communities she holds dear.

"It's like someone washed my childhood away," Blackburn said. "That's how it feels. It's like this storm literally just came and washed it all away."

More Details: Superstorm recovery

• Power: About 2.6 million homes and businesses still lacked electricity Saturday after 900,000 customers were brought back online overnight and restoration efforts stalled in New Jersey. Power companies advised that some areas may not get power back for another two weeks.

• Frustration: Many thousands of residents also remain without water, heat or phone service.

• Fuel: Almost 30 million gallons of fuel are to be delivered in coming days, on top of the 8 million already shipped to help mitigate gasoline shortages.

• Deaths: The storm has killed at least 106 people in the U.S.

• Schools: New York City will have all but 57 of its 1,700 public schools opened Monday. Those 57 have flooding or structural damage.

• Voting: Election officials in New York and New Jersey are moving dozens of polling sites and seeking backup power for hundreds more that lack electricity before the Tuesday vote.